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Sunday, April 17, 2016

Robbing Ebola to Pay Zika: Are you cool with that?

Summary of the response to Zika virus in 2016 from the scientific community, World Health Organization, U.S. National Institutes of Health, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. President, and U.S. Congress.

This here is Aedes aegypti.

Or just a mosquito, as many would see it.

Actually it is one of over 3,500
different types of mosquitos that exist around the world. It is in the news
right now because it is known to transmit the Zika virus, and it lives in South
and North America. It wasn’t always in the Americas – it was native to Africa.
But it immigrated its way across the Altantic some time ago. It is now migrating
northward into the United States. So far, more than half of the 50
states have this mosquito in them. Anywhere this mosquito is found, there is
potential for Zika virus to spread (among other
diseases).

The Zika virus was first reported in 1952. We still
don’t know very much about it. But here are a few things we have learned about
it since the World Health Organization declared it a "public health emergency" on February 1 this year.

This is quite alarming, particularly if you are a woman
who is pregnant, or planning to become pregnant soon. And it raises many more questions that do not yet have answers.

But as we learned from past epidemics like SARS and Ebola,
the best way to stop a public health emergency is to nip it in the bud. This is
also the most economical way, because an emergency response can cost a lot of
money. But how much?

On February 15, the World Health Organization (WHO) requested
$56 million
in funding from its member nations (including the U.S.) to coordinate a detailed
emergency response plan.

One week later, President Obama requested 1.9 billion
from Congress to fund surveillance, prevention, vaccine development, foreign aid, and
domestic aid to the U.S. territory Puerto Rico. The Caribbean island is in the
midst of a debt crisis, and does not have the infrastructure or the resources needed to
implement an effective mosquito control program. Incidentally, it has become a hotbed
for the spread of Zika.

This is a section of El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico that I photographed while hiking there in 2015. Like much of the infrastructure elsewhere in Puerto Rico, many ramadas and other features of the park are no longer maintained due to the economic downturn (it is still a beautiful park). Evacuated buildings and unmaintained land are left to rot and become breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

The U.S. Congress has so far declined to act on the
funding request due to a lack of support from the Republican majority, with the
exception of Florida senator Marco Rubio.
Instead, Congress
directed the President to divert the funds that were allocated for the Ebola response
at the end of 2014. Those funds originally amounted to $5.4 billion and were intended to be
used in various ways over a 5-year period.

Although Ebola is no longer considered a global health emergency, it is still a concern in West Africa. Outbreaks continue
to occur in some regions there, just like they did before 2014 when Ebola wasn’t
a buzzword and the WHO allegedly
wasn’t responding quickly enough to prevent it from spreading.
﻿As per the suggestion (or demands) of Congress, on April
6 the White House announced
it would pull $510 million from Ebola funding and scrape together another $79
million from other sources in order to mount an immediate $589 million response
to the Zika virus.

﻿﻿This amounts to less than a third of the $1.9 billion
originally requested by the President. Will it be sufficient? According to the
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and National Institutes of Health, the answer
is No.

Meanwhile, as of March 22, the WHO has only received $3 million of the $56 million it is seeking to confront the spread of Zika
virus before this summer when the 2016 Summer Olympic Games will take place in Rio de Janeiro Brazil. About 500,000 spectators and athletes from around the world are expected to attend. So far this year, 91,387 cases of Zika have been reported in Brazil, and 35,505 of those were in Rio.